Verdion secures VELF 2 opportunity

Verdion has acquired a further asset for its VELF 2 fund, adding a brownfield site on the German-French border south of Karlsruhe as part of a major country-wide acquisition programme.

The 32,000 sqm asset is located at Hohlohstraße 13 in Rastatt, within an established industrial and logistics location at the town’s eastern edge. It is less than 10 minutes from Germany’s strategic A5 motorway which runs north-south in the region, connecting Frankfurt and Basel.

Verdion European Logistics Fund 2 has a value-add strategy to acquire and reposition under-capitalised and under-managed logistics properties in established locations across Northern Europe, leveraging Verdion’s vertically-integrated team and technical expertise to undertake refurbishment and development projects in-house. Work on a major new facility for cosmetics distribution brand Sæther near the northern Danish port city of Helsingør is well underway, and a €33.5 million, DGNB Gold-certified distribution centre in Horsens within Denmark’s triangle region has been completed.

Verdion’s first fund, VELF 1, reached final close in 2020 and has invested over €300 million on the acquisition and enhancement of eleven logistics assets across Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Czechia. Following the sale of a facility for UPS next to Prague Airport in 2022, the sale of a prime asset in Nettetal has now completed, returning further value to investors.

Oliver Kemper, Investment Director at Verdion, said: “This is an important acquisition, reflecting the fund’s continued drive for brownfields with repurposing potential in strategic locations. With a third of VELF 2 equity now allocated and further capital to deploy, we have more sites under exclusivity and a growing pipeline across the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark in addition to our focus on Germany. As part of this, we continue to welcome off-market opportunities, particularly the chance to leverage the business’s in-house technical expertise, in addition to more mainstream approaches.”

GSK, Stane and M&P advised Verdion on the acquisition from Spedition Reinhard Lang.